The League of Franche-Comté (1)

Otto IV, Count of Burgundy (1248-1302). His highly personalised style of armour is derived from a series of sketches commissioned by his wife for Otto's tomb in 1312, a decade after his death. The tomb hasn't survived, but the sketches have, so it appears Otto really did wear a metal lizard on his head.

Described as of weak character, spendthrift and debauched (sounds like fun), Otto had little interest in being a count and in 1295 sold Burgundy to Philip IV for a lump sum of 100,000 livres tournois and an annual fee of 10,000 livres in rents. This enabled him to live as Philip's pensioner at the French court, and be as debauched as he pleased with zero responsibility.

When the nobles of Franche-Comté (eastern Burgundy) learned that Otto had flogged his inheritance - and hence their independence - to the king of France, they formed a solemn league and covenant and declared they would never swear homage to Philip or his heirs, or give up their rights to the French crown.

Antiphoners and cruets

Four days after Falkirk, 26 July, Edward I was at Stirling on the Forth. The castle had been held by the Scots since 1297, but surrendered soon after the king and his cavalry appeared before the walls. Edward left on 8 August, when the castle was supplied with food, weapons and furnishings for the chapel. The fifty-eight year old king, still nursing two broken ribs, had more riding ahead of him.

 The inventory for Stirling survives, and shows an interesting concern with the refurbishment of the chapel: God came first. John Sampson, the new constable of Stirling, received a silver chalice, a vestment, two towels, a missal, a portoise, an antiphoner, a troper, and two pewter cruets.

I had to Google some of the above. A ‘portoise’ was a breviary, an antiphoner a liturgical book, and a troper a book containing tropes or sequences for the sung parts of the Mass. For their earthly needs the garrison were supplied with 67 quarters of wheat flour, 46 quarters of wheat, 51 quarters of beans, 81 quarters of barley, 143 quarters of malt, 100 large cattle and 217 sheep. For a treat, they also received a box of almonds.

Count Floris the unlucky

Count Floris V of Holland (1254-96). Floris’s career might be taken as a classic example of the brutal and amoral politics of this era.

Floris was just two years old when his father, Count William, was killed by the Frisians. In 1282 he defeated the Frisians in battle and succeeded in recovering his father’s body. He was supported by the Count of Hainault, an arch-enemy of the Count of Flanders of the House of Dampierre. This feud sowed the seeds of Floris’s downfall.

In 1290 Floris was lured to a meeting by Count Guy of Flanders, and imprisoned at Biervliet in Zeeland until he agreed to abandon his claims to land on the Scheldt estuary. After he was released, Floris declared war on Flanders and invaded Zeeland, but was persuaded to relent by Edward I of England. Edward wanted to recruit both Guy and Floris as allies against Philip le Bel of France, and so brokered peace between them.

In 1292 Floris got involved in the succession dispute over the vacant throne of Scotland. Via his great-great-grandmother Ada, a sister of William the Lion, he had a weak claim to the throne. Floris succeeded in delaying the proceedings for almost a year while he looked for some missing paperwork. In reality he had no interest in becoming King of Scots. He colluded with Robert de Bruce, the Competitor, who supplied Floris with two forged documents ‘proving’ the count’s claim to the throne. These were judged to be insufficient and Bruce was unable to supply originals, because there were none. The whole thing was a fraud, designed to enable Bruce to purchase the crown of Scotland from Floris in the unlikely event that Edward would support his claim. Floris simply wanted money.

 The gambit failed, and Edward put John Balliol on the throne instead. Floris now played a dangerous game. In 1295 he took a bribe from the King of France to desert King Edward: his price was 4000 livres annually for life and a lump sum of 25,000 livres. He left the English camp on 9 January 1296, a fatal decision. Floris’s defection angered Edward, Count Guy, and his domestic enemies in Holland. A plot was hatched, whereby Floris would be kidnapped and smuggled over to England, where he would be given an ultimatum: return to Edward’s allegiance or surrender his title to his anglophile son, John. The kidnappers seized Floris while he was out hunting, but then panicked when some of his followers tried to rescue him. Floris was thrown into a ditch and stabbed thirty-six times. Most of his killers got away, but one was captured and tortured to death in public over a period of five hours.

The dead man’s son, John, was then married to Edward’s daughter Elizabeth of Rhuddlan. This renewed the Anglo-Dutch alliance. John, described as an ‘imbecilic runt’, appeared at the wedding at Ipswich in the company of John of Renesse, one of his father’s murderers. The new Count of Holland died in 1299, aged just fifteen, probably murdered by the Count of Hainault.

Crusader contracts

By the time he sailed for the Holy Land in 1270, the Lord Edward had secured the promise of at least seventeen barons of England and Brittany to “go with him to the Holy Land, and to remain in his service for a whole year to commence at the coming voyage.”

The prince agreed in return to provide them with water and transport as far as the theatre of military operations. The barons were accompanied by their knights. To judge from surviving contracts, the total number of men committed was 105, though some contracts may have been lost or destroyed. One of these agreements, for a baron of Northumberland named Adam Gesemue, reads:

“Know that I have agreed with the Lord Edward, to go with him to the Holy Land, accompanied by five knights, and to remain in his service for a whole year to commence at the coming voyage in September. And in return he has given me, to cover all expenses, 600 marks and money and transport - that is to say the hire of a ship and water for as many persons and horses as are appropriate for knights.”

Edward in turn was obliged to serve under the King of France, Saint Louis, “in the same way as any of other barons”. He retained full jurisdiction over his own followers. Any offences committed by English or Breton crusaders travelling through the lands of Christian princes or against other crusaders in North Africa were to be tried by Edward, who was also responsible for punishment.

Edward and Gilbert

The most important English leader whom the Lord Edward tried to enlist for his crusade was Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. How much Edward really wanted him along, despite Clare’s power and importance, is a moot point. Clare had taken the cross at Northampton in 1268, but afterwards his personal relations with the heir to the throne soured again. They had worked together to destroy Simon de Montfort, but it seems fairly clear the two struggled to get along.

Gilbert de Clare

Instead of courting the earl’s support, Edward went out of his way to antagonise him. In the summer of 1268 rumours swirled about the March, Clare’s power base, that Edward was paying too much attention to Clare’s wife, Alice de Lusignan. This was probably just gossip, but the prince took more serious steps to undermine Clare’s power.

In 1269, at the request of Prince Llywelyn, Edward came in person to the Marches and granted Llywelyn the homage and fealty of Maredudd ap Gruffudd, lord of Gwynllwg and Caerleon and one of Clare’s tenants. Maredudd was a descendant of the ancient princes of Deheuabarth, but his ancestors had lost most of their territories. Shortly before 1269, Llywelyn granted Maredudd the commote of Hirfryn in Ystrad Tywi. Llywelyn then claimed that Maredudd was a Welsh baron and ought to hold his lands as tenant-in-chief of the Prince of Wales. This was granted by Edward at the ford of Montgomery. Llywelyn was poised to attack Clare’s lands in Glamorgan and Gwent, so at this point Edward and Llywelyn formed a tag-team against the earl.

Clare went into a sulk and refused to attend a council in London, saying Edward ‘wished him ill’. He also refused to attend a conference in Paris to discuss the crusade in August, though it isn’t clear whether he was even invited. In February 1270 he went to Paris under his steam to meet with King Louis, only to return having rejected all of the French king’s proposals. He then refused to attend yet another parliament, and said he wouldn’t turn up unless letters of safe-conduct were granted to him and his men.

At last Edward’s uncle, Richard of Cornwall, intervened to heal the breach between his nephew and Clare. He brokered a remarkable agreement, whereby Clare was promised 2000 marks upon his departure from England to the Holy Land. This sum would be increased to 8000 marks if he personally accompanied Edward instead of going independently. The prince’s obligation was to pay the sums described and leave before September 1270. As extra insurance, both parties were to pay the massive sum of 20,000 marks if they broke the agreement, and Clare would have to surrender his castles of Tonbridge and Henley. These would be returned to him when it was known ‘he was on the Greek Sea’. In his absence the earl’s lands would have royal protection, and a threat of excommunication was added by the bishops in a separate document. It seems nobody had much confidence in this deal.

For good reason. After more rejections and arguments, Clare finally accepted the agreement on 127 June. In August he returned to the March to make preparations for departure - that, however, was the closest Clare ever got to the Holy Land. He refused to shift from his lands, and when the expedition finally left he wasn’t part of it. Richard of Cornwall’s contract proved so much worthless parchment, as Clare was never penalised for his failure to go East.

To serve kings

Line from zer vork in progress:

"It was Master James who first recruited Hugh. He was rotting in his plain tomb now, in a discreet corner of Westminster Abbey. That was his reward for a lifetime of devoted service; to be laid to rest alongside the kings and archbishops whose secrets he had kept, and whose little problems he had induced to go away."

Philip the not-so-fair

JF Verbruggen on Edward's cousin and contemporary, Philip IV of France, known as Philip le Bel or Philip the Fair:

"Philip IV had an acute, probably too acute, sense of his royal dignity. His reign marks the culmination of the medieval French monarchy. From 1285 to 1314, all his enterprises were executed with an extraordinary constancy, leading to an increase of the royal might and the destruction of the persons, groups and institutions that opposed or obstructed it. To attain these results, all means were good: obstinate war against the Flemings till the end of the reign, and spectacular trials well ordered, the accused going from interrogation to torture, accused of sorcery, heresy, crimes against nature, and eventually going to the stake."

Colour me cynical, but these medieval potentates were all the same. Philip arguably took things to extremes by perverting the course of justice to tear down Christian institutions such as the Knights Templar, but whatever.

Longbows strongbows

“For they feared the English king's infantry because amongst them were many archers.” Walter of Heminburgh, describing Edward I’s march from Bruges to Ghent in 1297. The flanks of the king’s little army were allegedly ‘bare of troops’, but the French refused to attack due to their fear of his archers.

This might be an early reference to Welsh archers armed with the longbow or war bow (or mega-bow, whatever). All of Edward’s infantry at this stage of the Flanders campaign were Welsh, recruited largely from Gwynedd and Glamorgan. Contemporary sketches of Welsh soldiers (see below) show them armed with short bows, though it is difficult to see why armoured French knights should have baulked at charging men armed with ordinary missile weapons. It would seem Gerald of Wales’s description of 12th Welsh archers armed with bows of dwarf elm, rough and unpolished, yet capable of pinning knights to their saddles, has some foundation after all.


There is also the evidence from the siege of Dryslwyn in 1287. One contemporary account of the siege describes an arrow from a Welsh archer shot with such force that it drilled clean through the head of an English soldier. Modern excavations at Dryslwyn and elsewhere have found plenty of arrowheads that would have been launched from ‘true longbows’. Dr Chris Caple, in charge of the digs, answered my query thus: 

“Yes these arrowhead were from longbows, the longest arrowhead with socket being over 16cm in length – the bows launching these arrowheads were effectively true longbows.  Olly Jessop (who wrote the typology of medieval arrowheads) wrote the specialist report for us (reference below).  There is plenty of evidence for similar arrowheads from other castles such as Criccieth in Wales. Our examples are perhaps a little better dated than other given the modern excavation standards at Dryslwyn.  The problems are always to do with words – terms such as war bow, longbow etc mean different things to different authors.  The best and most telling evidence is from archaeology.”

None of the above, however, supports the popular view of Wallace’s spearmen being shot to bits by longbows at the battle of Falkirk. Most chronicle accounts agree the Welsh refused to fight at Falkirk until the closing stages. Therefore the schiltrons must have been broken up by other means, and there is no evidence of English troops using longbows at this stage.

Horsey and Brucey

Two letters, just a few days before the disagreement at Falkirk. On the first, dated 29 June 1298, Edward I orders the sheriff of Northumberland to receive the king's horse from Adam Riston, who served a dual role as captain of the royal bodyguard and master of horse.

Horsey was to be kept in the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and fed daily on oats, bran and 'other things needful'. In the second, dated 3 July, Robert de Bruce earl of Carrick and lord of Annadale informs the chancellor of England that he will do 'anything' the chancellor requires of him. In addition he has despatched three of his knights to join King Edward in Galloway. This is Bruce senior, father of the future victor of Bannockburn.

Simon Fraser

The arms of Simon Fraser of Oliver and Neidpath. Simon was captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296 and afterwards released in exchange for military service in Flanders. He swore fealty to Edward I on 13 October of that year, and on 28 May 1297 swore a solemn oath to serve the king in Scotland against the King of France. This oath was made at Bramber in Essex, and was a very serious affair. Both Simon and the king laid their hands on the altar as the oath was sworn. Simon’s kinsman, Richard, was present to stand surety. 

Simon served in the English army in Flanders, to King Edward’s great pleasure: the king wrote that the Scotsman’s service had ‘pleased him much’, and commanded that the lands of Simon’s valet, Geoffrey Ridell, should be restored to him. Edward then made Simon a household knight, a mix of soldier-diplomat-administrator, fed daily in the king’s hall and given new robes twice a year. Before the Battle of Falkirk he was gifted a ‘ferrand pomele’ horse by the king, another mark of favour. At the battle Simon was in the king’s bataille and led a small conroi of four valets.

Mortimer of Chirk

The arms of Roger Mortimer of Chirk, taken from a modern version of the Falkirk Roll.

Mortimer, a tough lord of the Welsh March, was a busy man. In the winter of 1294 he served in the first expeditionary force sent to recover Gascony from the French, and was present at the storming of St-Macaire. He was then appointed captain of Blaye, one of two remaining ducal citadels in the northern part of the duchy. Mortimer was still in Gascony the following August, where he obtained quittance for his service. In July 1297 he was summoned again to serve overseas, this time in Flanders.

As one of Edward I’s most experienced captains, Mortimer naturally served on the Falkirk campaign. In April 1298 he and William de la Pole were ordered to raise 600 Welsh foot from the lands of ‘Lanhudo’, Maskyn and Moghelan, and lead them to the King at Chester. Mortimer and his retinue were placed in the king’s own battalion, ‘Le batayle de Roy’, among such big nobs as Thomas of Lancaster, Hugh Despenser, the Earl of Warwick and John of Brittany. His kinsman, Hugh Mortimer of Richard’s Castle, served in the same bataille.

The horse-rolls for the English army at Falkirk show that Mortimer’s own troop or conroi consisted of twenty men and included three more Mortimers, Henry, John and another Roger. There were also two Welshmen, Jereward Voiel and Ivan ab Adam, and an Adam de Wygemore, doubtless raised from Mortimer’s own lordship of Wigmore on the March.

A multi-cultural mugging

A tale of multi-cultural wonderfulness on the March, in which men of all nations and tongues came together to stage a massive robbery.

“Other, more dramatic forms of acculturation were taking place. This is evidenced by events in the south-east in October 1252, when Robert de Chandos, lord of Wilmaston in the Golden Valley, and a following that included some of his esquires, men with ‘French’ names and at least one Welsh accomplice, gathered in Monmouth, travelled through Archenfield to the manor of Sir John de Turvill, which they burned and from which they took considerable spoil. They moved on through the land of Sir Robert Tregoz (Ewias Harold) along the edge of the land of the king, into the territory of Sir William de Cantilupe (Abergavenny). They stayed a night in the land of Sir Robert Turberville (Crickhowell) and went finally to the land of Rhys ap Gruffudd. He can be identified as the lord of Senghenydd. There the spoil was divided, with Rhys taking fifteen oxen and one warhorse, as his share in return for harbouring the raiders. They were still living under his protection in December of the year.”

- David Stephenson, Centuries of Ambiguity.

Robert Chandos was an ancestor of Sir John Chandos, the famous warrior of the French wars and one of the original Knights of the Garter. Attached is a pic of the remains of Snodhill Castle, a Chandos stronghold, in Herefordshire’s Golden Valley.

Sir John Chandos

Adam Gurdun: Quite Possibly Indestructible

In October 1295, eight years after his last military service in Wales, Adam Gurdun was summoned once again to serve his king.

This time he was placed in charge of the defence of Hampshire, part of the chain of coastal defences hurriedly set up against the threat of a French invasion. Adam was appointed ‘custos’ of the Hampshire coast, while similar power was given to Henry of Cobham for Kent and William Stoke for the rapes of Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings.

The threat of invasion was very real. Philip le Bel had brought ship-builders from Genoa to build galleys in Marseille and in Normandy, and in 1295 a squadron sailed from the Mediterranean to invade England. In August a French raiding party landed at Dover and set fire to the town, killing two monks of the priory. An assault on Winchelsea was beaten off, and a French galley foundered on some rocks when it tried to attack Hythe. All along the southern coast, alarm bells were ringing. From his base at Wingham in Kent, King Edward declared the French intended to wipe the English language from the face of the earth. His emphasis on the language - English, not Norman-French or domestic variants - suggests the upper classes in England no longer despised the native tongue.

Adam, now in his 70s, was given total responsibility for mustering soldiers and organising the defence of Hampshire. From his headquarters at Portsmouth, he was in command of a licensed private army. The old knight went about his task with relish: within days he had organised a general mobilisation of all able-bodied men, and come up with a detailed plan for the defence of his section of coastline.

The coastal defence scheme for Hampshire survives in its entirety. Adam’s defences consisted of a strong garrison on the Isle of Wight, with the mainland beaches along the Solent and Spithead and the Southampton Water guarded by infantry. These men were drawn from seaside villages and inland hundreds as a first line of defense. Behind them was a mobile reserve of cavalry. If the French attempted to land on the mainland, they would be outflanked by the garrison on the Isle. If they tried to attack the Isle, they would be bottled up by Adam’s forces on the mainland and ships from the Cinque Ports.

Adam also set about raising the landholders of the region. Everyone in Hampshire who could afford to raise men was summoned in Hampshire, to be ‘assessed for horses and arms’. The Bishop of Winchester was assessed for one hundred covered horsemen, the Prior of St Swithin for ten, the Abbot of Waverley at four, the Abbot of Hyde for six, and so on. More cavalry were distributed among Hurst Castle, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight. All told, some 246 mounted men were named and tapped for service with horses and arms in defence of Hampshire.

Announcement...announcement...announcement...

So to preen and swagger and boast for a moment, I've been offered a contract to write a biography of Dafydd ap Gruffudd. There hasn't been one, so far as I know: he tends to appear as an important supporting player, but has never had a bio of his own.

Dafydd is obviously a 'controversial' figure, and digging into his psyche will be an interesting exercise. This morning I read the following snippet by the late Tony Carr:

"Dafydd's role has also given rise to debate; the fact that he changed sides in 1263 and again in 1274 may suggest a lack of loyalty but it is also possible that these changes of allegiance were the result of a fundamental disagreement of an able man with policies which he saw as putting the principality and his inheritance in jeopardy. It is certainly simplistic to see Dafydd as Llywelyn's evil genius."

So has Dafydd been misunderstood? Was he no 'traitor' after all, but a man of long-term vision who saw that Llywelyn was leading Wales straight over a cliff? Interestingly, I also picked up a copy of Martin Johnes' recent book, Wales: England's Colony, and that is pretty much the criticism he aims at Llywelyn.

An announcement (fanfare). W.F. Howes, the leading publisher of audiobooks in the UK, has signed two of my books, LONGSWORD and the sequel LONGSWORD (II) THE SONS OF MONTFORT.

Longsword is available for pre-order on Audible.com and will be published on 27 September. Huzzah! 

LONGSWORD for pre-order on Audible

The Knight with two swords...and should we just leave him alone?

Earlier this month a team of hobby archeologists - or archeological hobbyists - unearthed an amazing find in a field in Janakkala in Southern Finland. They were using metal-detector equipment on a site thought to contain prehistoric remains. After turning up a few minor bits and bobs, the detector located a piece of a spear and an axe blade. The group started digging and found the remnant of a sword.

Leave me alone, you ghoulish bastards

At this point they broke off work and contacted The National Board of Antiquities. A 'proper' dig was conducted, and a grave uncovered containing the remarkably well-preserved cadaver of a Crusader knight dating back almost a thousand years to the time of the First or Second Crusade. Most unusually, Sir Anonymous had been buried with two swords. One was a 12th century longsword, of the sort you might expect a knight to carry, the other a Viking-era blade. The knight himself was a fine figure of a man, 180cm tall, and clearly well-prepared to tackle anything the afterlife could throw at him: besides the two swords, he was also buried with an array of tools, including a spear and axe. Perhaps he died with a guilty conscience?

The excitement over this find reminded me of a moral issue I occasionally have problems with. Is it right for us to grub up the remains of the dead from their last resting place, so we can pick over their bones and attempt to recreate their physical appearance using complex facial reconstruction techniques etc? Archeologists have always sought to locate and uncover the dead - it's their job - but this is threatening to become a trend, especially in England, where the rediscovery of Richard III's bones has led to calls for other dead monarchs to be exhumed. Next up is Alfred the Great, a long-suffering, serenely dignified man in life, whose dignity is about to be raped in death.

Richard III's skull

I exaggerate, of course. 'Rape' is a deliberately emotive word, used to ensure that some of you are still listening at the back. The obvious counter-argument is that unearthing the dead and examining human remains adds to our store of knowledge, and that archeology is the only certain way of discovering what really happened 'on the ground' in the distant past. Otherwise we have to rely on informed speculation and contemporary writings, both of which can lead to seriously flawed conclusions.

It's a point worth discussing, though. Certainly our dead Finnish crusader would be outraged at the notion that his grave might be disturbed a thousand years after his death, and must be roundly cursing us from Heaven or Valhalla or wherever his warlike soul found its rest. Is the sanctity of a grave worth more than the accumulation of knowledge?